Strathcona Provincial Park

Established in 1911, Strathcona Provincial Park is Vancouver Island’s largest protected area, and the oldest park in BC. It’s also one of the few places on the island where the scenery approaches the grandeur of the mainland mountains. The island’s highest point, Golden Hinde (2220m) is here, and it’s also a place where there’s a good chance of seeing rare indigenous wildlife (the Roosevelt elk, marmot and black-tailed deer are the most notable examples). Only two areas have any sort of facilities for the visitor – Forbidden Plateau on the park’s eastern side, approached from Courtenay, and the more popular Buttle Lakeregion, accessible from Campbell River via Hwy-28. The rest of the park is unsullied wilderness, but fully open to backpackers and hardier walkers.

You’ll see numerous pictures of Della Falls around Campbell River which, at 440m, are Canada’s highest, though it takes a two-day trek to see them.

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Hiking in Strathcona Provincial Park

Hiking is superb in Strathcona, with a jaw-dropping scenic combination of jagged mountains – including Golden Hinde (2220m) – lakes, rivers, waterfalls and all the trees you could possibly want. There are several shorter, marked trails accessible from the highway. All the longer trails can be tramped in a day, though the most popular, the Elk River Trail (10km), which starts from Drum Lake on Hwy-28, lends itself to an overnight stop; popular with backpackers because of its gentle grade, the path ends up at Landslide Lake, an idyllic camping spot. The other highly regarded trail is the Flower Ridge walk, a steep 14km round-trip (extendable by 10km) that starts at the southern end of Buttle Lake and involves a very stiff 1250m elevation gain. The same lung-busting ascent is called for on the Crest Mountain Trail (10km round-trip), a trail into high mountain country accessed from Hwy-28 at the park’s western edge. The backpacking is great once you’ve hauled up onto the summit ridges above the tree-line.

In the Forbidden Plateau area, named after an aboriginal legend that claimed evil spirits lay in wait to devour women and children who entered its precincts, the most popular trip is the Forbidden Plateau Skyride to the summit of Wood Mountain where there’s a 2km trail to a viewpoint over Boston Canyon.